I heard May as well. Chef Ken Lyon was on "After Hours with Daniel" this past week which took place at The Lido at the Standard Hotel. All of the Miami episodes have been great and its cool to "meet" some of the local chefs like Lyon.

We are pleased to announce the opening of Fratelli Lyon at 4141 NE 2nd Avenue in the Miami Design District on Tuesday, May 27 for dinner.

Kenny Lyon is a friend and Slow Food member and has a long history in Miami of serving delicious food. As you may remember, he created a beautiful meal for us to benefit Slow Food Miami on February 24th and on that night we celebrated the beginning of the Slow Food Revolution.

Kenny has created a beautiful and elegant restaurant in the Slow Food tradition. Great care has been used in sourcing ingredients and preserving the rich culinary heritage of Italian cuisine.

We hope you will enjoy Fratelli Lyon and the authentic cuisine from his kitchen.

So we had come home to late to prepare dinner tonight, so we headed over the causeway to Fratelli Lyon. Beautifully appointed as it is part of the Driade Showroom, we were the first "official" customers! Lots of staff were on hand as we realized it was also a Friends and Family event. Regardless, we were in for a great experience. It seemed their license to serve beer and wine was not in effect, so they kindly offered us a small carafe of red wine.

The menu was heavy on antipasti and also had pizza, daily specials that were listed, and pastas and main dishes as well. Being so impressed with the antipasti, we proceeded to do the "Esplosione de Antipasti" for 2 at $50. We selected:Calamari poached with celery lemon olive oil (chilled and fresh, very summer dish)Chicken liver toasts with crispy sage (smooth and creamy)Bresaola air dried beef from UruguayProsciutto de Parma (both meats were great!)Gorgonzola Dolce di Montagna served with pearLa Tur triple milk cheese (cow,goat, and sheep milk)

the cheese were the best of the whole platter, though the whole platter was incredible! And there are so many more to choose from, you will be making many trips to try them all. Considering that we had a huge antipasti platter, we got a simple pasta dish to split afterwards. Pasta alla Chitarra con Salsa di Pomodoro Veloce. It was the simplest pasta dish with the most flavor!

No room for dessert, but I did get the french press pot for a great cup of Illy coffee and called it a night!

Looking forward to future meals here, a shame they are not in the ole SushiSamba space anymore as they were a pioneer of Lincoln Road!

The antipasti is fantastic. We had caponata, mushrooms, red pepper and the chicken liver crostini. All were scrumptious.

We also tried the pumpkin risotto (not exactly seasonal and a bit too heavy for May), the steak with yuca fries (the fries were divine, the steak well-seasoned but a bit like leather), the ravioli (see risotto), the copper pot with shrimp, mussels and scallops (delicious) and the sole (the fish is delectably breaded like a milanese and served room temperature- magnificent).

The polenta cake dessert is dreamy- a not too sweet cornbready thing served with whipped cream and ice cream.

Since so far this Italian restaurant has gotten noticeably raving reviews from Chowhounders, would it be safe to compare it to Il Gabbiano? I'm curious how the two compares as it seems we've got another top-contender for Italian in Miami.

I wouldn't compare them because their focus is different. (a better comparison might be Sardinia)Fratelli -- emphasis on antipasti and fresh ingredients with more interesting combinations: menupages has posted menu--see the differences (i think Fratelli is more promising)Gabbiano more standard choices plus still a bit more expensive (different price point)

I don't see how FL compares to Sardinia, which is a regional Italian cuisine restaurant, in the modern sense. FL is just all over the map with the greatest hits. Anyone can call a wholesaler and get charcuterie. The fact that Il Gabbiano also does the greatest hits makes it more closely aligned with FL. And I'm pretty sure their ingredients are just as fresh.

FL and Sardinia both have extended antipasti menus (salumi, formaggi, etc), but the similarity does end there, so it was a loose comparison

also didn't mean to imply that Gabbiano was not fresh, just pointed out that FL, with it's slow food movement emphasis, offers a menu which highlights the fresh ingredients using light preparation

FL appears to have created the menu after finding good ingredients to use (californian style); this seems different from both Gabbiano and Sardinia, which had an Italian menu in mind, and then set out to find those ingredients

They do have an area for solo dining. I visited last night and had a good experience. Six of us shared the explosion ( $50), a sampling of their many antipasti. The olives and cheeses were delicious. The highlight among the entrees was a risotto with lemon and scallops. Of the desserts, the polenta almond cake was my favorite along with the espresso and raspberry gelatos. My grilled duck breast, with chard and polenta was good but I wouldn't say the most outstanding dish at our table. Another highlight was the "brodetto," a seafood stew served in a copper pot with shrimp, scallops, mussels in a tomato-saffron broth. Overall, we all enjoyed it.

Thanks, I made it over today for lunch and had an enjoyable meal. There were a lot of options on the lunch menu (antipasti, pizza's, panini's, salads, pastas, meat and fish) and most appear on the dinner menu as well with the exception of the panini's. The dinner menu contains more pasta and entree (meat/fish) options. They also have daily dinner specials that were listed on the menu. The Wednesday special peaked my interest and is a braised rabbit with white wine and fusili ($20)

Unfortunately, I did not try any of the Salumi or formaggi options but I saw some orders near me and they looked really good.

I went with the calamari which was poached and served with celery, lemon and olive oil. The calamari was very fresh and the preparation was light, clean and crisp. It worked well.I wanted to try a pasta and went with the ravioli which was the only homemade pasta on the lunch menu. If I recall correctly, there is a homemade tagliatelle on the dinner menu as well. The actual ravioli was very light and very good. It was filled with ricotta and served with brown butter and asparagus. Combination tasted great. Looking forward to going back and trying some of the salumi's, vegetables and cheeses. It should be noted that there is a bar area with several seats for dining, There is also an antipasti bar with seating.Didn't get a chance to see a wine list.

Walking into Fratelli Lyon gave me an impression of being in a cosmopolitan city, a new restaurant always comes with rough edges that will file off with time, HOWEVER, good food is what will prevail.I was seated at the bar where I was squeezed between two rather rude patrons that kept bumping their arm on my chest as they ate without apologizing. I was quickly presented with the wine list, and ordered a glass of wine, which was the smallest pour I have ever had. Of course I was quickly asked if I wanted another glass once I finished with my first one, feIt a bit pushy. The rest of the patrons around me were well taken care of, plenty of water, plenty of bread. I had to ask fo water and was never served bread. The Chef/owner approached both sides of the parties that surrounded me (I was dinning alone) I was not acknoledged by him at all.

Ordered the sweet & sour beets, which basically were boiled dice beets on a plate, plain & no appetizing presentation and wondered what happened to the sweet & sour part for about $8.50, not many chefs can mess expensive diced boiled beets!

As a main course, ordered the lemoned scallop rissotto, which was bland and soupy, the scallops garnishing on the top were actually tasty.

Skipped the desserts.

I always judge the tidiness of a restaurant by their bathrooms and when using Fratelli Lyon's left a lot to wish for. Just did not want to imagine how that kitchen was run, if the bathroom was so unkept and shocking considering that this place was just recently opened!.

I had dinner there on Saturday nite and I loved it. We had the gorgonzola bruschetta, 3 different types of salumi all delicious, and the freshest most delicious olives. For dinner I had the lemon risotto which I enjoyed and others had a pizza and the bolognese (which was good but not as great as Anacapri's). They had great bellinis but their desserts didn't inspire any of us to try it. Go and see for yourself. We really had a great experience there.

Went last night and liked it. List of antipasti is large enough that you can make a meal of them on them on their own. Tried three of the salumi (excellent) and the artichoke, fennel, leek concoction (good, but one of the artichoke stems was a little undercooked). Had pastas all around (the bolognese was very good, the ravioli with ricotta was too rich for me, but those who had it enjoyed it. Wine list was pretty sparse but I didn't really get a chance to look at it. Desserts were good (they accidentally brought out the wrong dessert at first so we got to try two, the chocolate gelato and the chocolate budino, both of which I'd recommend) and coffee in a french press is a plus. Service was competent and our server suggested we get our order in fairly quickly as the place was scheduled to fill up quickly By the time we left we could barely get out due to the crowd waiting for a table. The space is excellent, however, it's not conducive to having a crowd waiting. The bar is against the back wall and if you're eating at the bar or one of the tables parallel to it you quickly become friends with those hovering and waiting for a table.

In short, FL has good food, prices are in check, wine list was short but reasonable, decent service and an incredible space.